This is likely just a post to satisfy my own hatred for telephones, but maybe you as well have these issues and can assure me that I'm not a complete oddity.
I enjoy talking with people. I wouldn't characterize myself as a social person, but I wouldn't say I'm anti-social either. I enjoy discussing the things I am interested in with others, and, just in general, I enjoy keeping in touch with people's lives (for the few people who care to share it with me). This is true until I pick up the phone to talk to someone, and I'd like to logically explain why.
Written forms of communication are the best ways to communicate with others. When you are forced into an audible conversation with someone, the chances to mess up grow exponentially. When you write, you are given time to think through every response and you have the ability to delete anything that may not have the effect you intended (as long as you do so before you send it). I cannot count the times (and the number may be uncountable (haha, set theory joke)) that I have typed something and deleted it because I realized it would be the dumbest phrase ever uttered by a human. Of course, there is one caveat: You cannot relay tone in a written conversation.
Not every conversation can be carried out through text or email (unfortunately) so we are forced to audibly interact. I realize that, and, in fact, occasionally prefer it. A robot like me, you would suspect, always prefers to calculate the correct response in every conversation prior to responding, but personal conversations are much more appropriately handled in a personal manner (who'd have thought?). I recall several conversations I have had that I shook my head at the fact that they were being held over Facebook chat or text rather than in person. But I digress.
My main point I mean to make about face-to-face conversation is that it is one thousand times better than phone conversation. My main struggle is the fact that I am deaf. Not literally deaf as in cannot hear, but my ability to hear seems to be far below normal human levels (I can't absolutely know, because I can only hear as well as myself (also, I don't have one of those sweet elementary school hearing test machines or a person to test against myself)). This deafness is less of an issue in normal conversation for a few reasons: the person's voice is not being shoved into a wire and transmitted into outer space before reaching me, and I'm able to look at the lips of someone talking to me (look up the McGurk effect to see how much sight affects hearing (this video is pretty sweet too)). In this way I reduce the amount I ask "What?" from half of the time to one third of the time (another reason written communication is better: if you know how to read it is much more difficult to misunderstand what someone is saying).
Let me also point out that my brain is allergic to phones. I have recently learned this at my job as I've noticed a substantial drop in IQ whenever I pick up a phone. This is a personal problem, and likely doesn't relate to anyone else in the universe, but I felt the need to mention it. It may be linked to the fact that I am far from being spontaneous and talking on the phone requires an instant response to the caller's speech. However, if this were the case, I should be just as idiotic while speaking to someone in person. Other people can feel free to refute the following claim (they're likely more correct), but I don't think I'm much dumber in face-to-face conversation as compared to written communication.
There is, however, one person I must address before I conclude this topic, in the chance that she may be offended. Let me address her personally: Mother, I do look forward to my call to you every week. In a perfect world, I wouldn't be forced to use that hideous device to converse with you, but alas, it must be so. I hope you have a great week, and I look forward to speaking again next Sunday :)
19 February 2012
12 February 2012
Complaint #023: Romance
Single men should not listen to love songs. Occasionally, between the time that I'm watching football, drinking beer, stroking my enormous beard, hunting and slaughtering various animals (with my bare hands), and eating their roasted carcasses, I get the time to listen to music. Approximately 99.997% of music is about romantic love. So, when I was listening to some Beatles this past week, I realized single men should not listen to love songs.
Let me explain how my brain works (I don't know how others' brains work, so I'm putting this in my terms, feel free to reply below to tell me how crazy I am). I feel two levels of my brain working at a time: the higher level, logical brain function and the lower level, emotional brain function. I try to pride myself on being fairly dominated by the logical level of my brain. This level of my brain knows I should be content even in my singleness, and even though having a companion is desired, it is not necessary. My lower level brain function is dumber than a lemming. It continually craves companionship and cannot stop thinking about my previous romantic relationship opportunities and tries to figure out how to fix them. Just writing that makes me feel like a creeper, but I am unable to shut off this function of my brain. What makes this worse is that my higher brain level realizes anything that is forced, in the realm of romance, ruins the beauty of romance so it is content to just wait until love befalls me. The lower level brain function will have nothing to do with this and wants to create love out of anything.
I've scientifically determined that the time at which I have the highest probability of finding true romantic love is the instant I can convince my entire mind that I don't need it. This time, however, is likely off in the distant future. eBay (which I barely even use anymore) and Amazon feel the need to email me every day to remind me that I need to buy stuff for Valentine's Day. What am I going to buy and for whom? There isn't an "I'm a pathetic single, stop emailing me about Valentine's Day" button; I've checked. Valentine's Day is only a few days off, so that'll pass. Then I've got music. I can't not listen to music. No matter how hard I try, I can't avoid music that has a love theme. But let's say that I can, I still won't be able to avoid happy people. Happy couples are everywhere! Let me say something to all the happily-in-love people in my audience: your happiness fills us single people with the urge to drown puppies. You people should be instantly transported to a separate universe where people are happy and in love so all the single people can go through life being content with their single lives instead of being continually reminded of how pathetically single they are. The last thing I'll point out (and a submission for my candidacy as president of the tautology club) is that beautiful women are beautiful. Women shouldn't be so attractive so that I don't realize they're not dating me.
So what is my advice? How should I and others cope with this? Name the animals. I know, it isn't the advice you were expecting, but it's Biblical: Adam, before he ate some fruit and destroyed humanity, before sin had even entered the world, during the time where he could hang out with God any time he wanted, felt incomplete without a physical companion. When he brought this to God, what did God do? Did God create Eve? Nope. He told Adam to name all the animals. This actually makes sense, though, because he had to work to figure out what his perfect companion would be, and he realized it wasn't a zebra or a gecko. As such, we need to work to find who will be our perfect companion. What does this mean for me? What does it mean for you? I don't know, but when you feel you need a significant other, remind yourself that you first need to name the animals. That, and don't listen to love songs.
*Let me give attribution to Donald Miller for that last paragraph which I essentially stole from him.
Let me explain how my brain works (I don't know how others' brains work, so I'm putting this in my terms, feel free to reply below to tell me how crazy I am). I feel two levels of my brain working at a time: the higher level, logical brain function and the lower level, emotional brain function. I try to pride myself on being fairly dominated by the logical level of my brain. This level of my brain knows I should be content even in my singleness, and even though having a companion is desired, it is not necessary. My lower level brain function is dumber than a lemming. It continually craves companionship and cannot stop thinking about my previous romantic relationship opportunities and tries to figure out how to fix them. Just writing that makes me feel like a creeper, but I am unable to shut off this function of my brain. What makes this worse is that my higher brain level realizes anything that is forced, in the realm of romance, ruins the beauty of romance so it is content to just wait until love befalls me. The lower level brain function will have nothing to do with this and wants to create love out of anything.
I've scientifically determined that the time at which I have the highest probability of finding true romantic love is the instant I can convince my entire mind that I don't need it. This time, however, is likely off in the distant future. eBay (which I barely even use anymore) and Amazon feel the need to email me every day to remind me that I need to buy stuff for Valentine's Day. What am I going to buy and for whom? There isn't an "I'm a pathetic single, stop emailing me about Valentine's Day" button; I've checked. Valentine's Day is only a few days off, so that'll pass. Then I've got music. I can't not listen to music. No matter how hard I try, I can't avoid music that has a love theme. But let's say that I can, I still won't be able to avoid happy people. Happy couples are everywhere! Let me say something to all the happily-in-love people in my audience: your happiness fills us single people with the urge to drown puppies. You people should be instantly transported to a separate universe where people are happy and in love so all the single people can go through life being content with their single lives instead of being continually reminded of how pathetically single they are. The last thing I'll point out (and a submission for my candidacy as president of the tautology club) is that beautiful women are beautiful. Women shouldn't be so attractive so that I don't realize they're not dating me.
So what is my advice? How should I and others cope with this? Name the animals. I know, it isn't the advice you were expecting, but it's Biblical: Adam, before he ate some fruit and destroyed humanity, before sin had even entered the world, during the time where he could hang out with God any time he wanted, felt incomplete without a physical companion. When he brought this to God, what did God do? Did God create Eve? Nope. He told Adam to name all the animals. This actually makes sense, though, because he had to work to figure out what his perfect companion would be, and he realized it wasn't a zebra or a gecko. As such, we need to work to find who will be our perfect companion. What does this mean for me? What does it mean for you? I don't know, but when you feel you need a significant other, remind yourself that you first need to name the animals. That, and don't listen to love songs.
*Let me give attribution to Donald Miller for that last paragraph which I essentially stole from him.
07 February 2012
Complaint #022: Hell
I always hated books. I used to be allergic to reading. It was a more time-consuming way to get information or get entertainment than watching TV or using the internet. I used to cringe at the thought of cracking open a novel. This was largely true until I moved to Madison. As a loser that doesn't drive and takes the bus to and from work (well, really to and from almost anywhere), I get a lot of time that I can't just sit and watch TV or use the internet. As such, I've probably read more in the past eight months than I have the rest of my life.
Last week I read Rob Bell's Love Wins. For those of you that were living in a cave most of last year and aren't familiar with the concept of the book, I'm going to do the book a disservice and distill it down to one sentence (read the entire book before judging solely on this): Bell suggests, crazy as it may be, that God is a loving God and does not eternally damn every person who doesn't meet the five actions the church has defined saves you. It's a bit more complex than this, but Bell essentially denies the existence of Hell as we know it. Before I talk about Hell, let me give some background.
The Bible is a book about God redeeming people. It never mentions man redeeming himself (mainly because we aren't qualified). The death of Jesus atoned for each and every sin I will commit before I have the chance to commit it. Nothing I do can make them "more atoned for"; it has been done. God loves each of us as his children and endured the death of Himself/His son to save each of us. He has also revealed to us that a time is coming when He brings his dwelling (Heaven) to us (if this strikes you as odd, Heaven will be here, on Earth. Read your Bible.) We have some time to prepare and that is what living like Christ is about.
This is where Hell comes in. When the good Christians die and go to Heaven, everyone else is sifted out and thrown into an eternal pit of molten sulfur, experiencing torture for the rest of eternity. This seems like just punishment for a small time of disobedience on Earth. Of course not. What's enraging about this is the fact that, if Bell's book is to be believed (more on that later), this is largely unfounded in scripture. Humans have created Hell. This shouldn't be too surprising, we are human, but to be this evil is disgusting and disturbing, and I'm ashamed to say that I have been a part of it.
So what about all those passages that talk about fire and brimstone? I can't offer any insight on the aspect of eternity in relation to the Hell of the Bible (let Bell do that, read his book), but I will offer an explanation that I'm currently pondering: God's bringing Heaven here to us and He gave us the manual on how Heaven can exist even with humans in it (because, as we're all aware, we'd otherwise mess it up. Remember the Garden of Eden?) God sees each command in His word as a benefit for us to get closer to the people we need to be in Heaven. So what are the fires of Hell all about? Let's consider it a "refining by fire" (hey, that's the name of the blog!) so we become purified to exist in Heaven. So what's the point of being a Christian in our current existence? Well, I'm not sure if you remember what the refining process is, but it would be an incredibly painful process for humans to go through and, in the process, the impurities are removed. If someone didn't live like Christ, they would come out of this painful process and not much of themselves would be left. This is why God commands us to live apart from society, be more like Christ, and we can bring all of that to Heaven with us.
I'm not sure I articulated that in the most clear manner, and in the way I wanted to, but, rest assured it makes a bit of sense in my mind. You need to make your own conclusions about it. This is where I come back to whether I believe Bell's book, and the answer is a definitive, decisive "maybe". I'm currently reading through the scriptures and seeing them with a whole new perspective. If this new perspective lines up, there's no reason to not believe it as a possibility. It only affects the fate of every person who ever lived, so I shant take it lightly and neither should you.
Last week I read Rob Bell's Love Wins. For those of you that were living in a cave most of last year and aren't familiar with the concept of the book, I'm going to do the book a disservice and distill it down to one sentence (read the entire book before judging solely on this): Bell suggests, crazy as it may be, that God is a loving God and does not eternally damn every person who doesn't meet the five actions the church has defined saves you. It's a bit more complex than this, but Bell essentially denies the existence of Hell as we know it. Before I talk about Hell, let me give some background.
The Bible is a book about God redeeming people. It never mentions man redeeming himself (mainly because we aren't qualified). The death of Jesus atoned for each and every sin I will commit before I have the chance to commit it. Nothing I do can make them "more atoned for"; it has been done. God loves each of us as his children and endured the death of Himself/His son to save each of us. He has also revealed to us that a time is coming when He brings his dwelling (Heaven) to us (if this strikes you as odd, Heaven will be here, on Earth. Read your Bible.) We have some time to prepare and that is what living like Christ is about.
This is where Hell comes in. When the good Christians die and go to Heaven, everyone else is sifted out and thrown into an eternal pit of molten sulfur, experiencing torture for the rest of eternity. This seems like just punishment for a small time of disobedience on Earth. Of course not. What's enraging about this is the fact that, if Bell's book is to be believed (more on that later), this is largely unfounded in scripture. Humans have created Hell. This shouldn't be too surprising, we are human, but to be this evil is disgusting and disturbing, and I'm ashamed to say that I have been a part of it.
So what about all those passages that talk about fire and brimstone? I can't offer any insight on the aspect of eternity in relation to the Hell of the Bible (let Bell do that, read his book), but I will offer an explanation that I'm currently pondering: God's bringing Heaven here to us and He gave us the manual on how Heaven can exist even with humans in it (because, as we're all aware, we'd otherwise mess it up. Remember the Garden of Eden?) God sees each command in His word as a benefit for us to get closer to the people we need to be in Heaven. So what are the fires of Hell all about? Let's consider it a "refining by fire" (hey, that's the name of the blog!) so we become purified to exist in Heaven. So what's the point of being a Christian in our current existence? Well, I'm not sure if you remember what the refining process is, but it would be an incredibly painful process for humans to go through and, in the process, the impurities are removed. If someone didn't live like Christ, they would come out of this painful process and not much of themselves would be left. This is why God commands us to live apart from society, be more like Christ, and we can bring all of that to Heaven with us.
I'm not sure I articulated that in the most clear manner, and in the way I wanted to, but, rest assured it makes a bit of sense in my mind. You need to make your own conclusions about it. This is where I come back to whether I believe Bell's book, and the answer is a definitive, decisive "maybe". I'm currently reading through the scriptures and seeing them with a whole new perspective. If this new perspective lines up, there's no reason to not believe it as a possibility. It only affects the fate of every person who ever lived, so I shant take it lightly and neither should you.
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